


the allure of memory

by akc



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Blood, Childhood Memories, Hurt No Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 11:22:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16474613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akc/pseuds/akc
Summary: “It’s okay,” Goro says again, and he wonders if time is repeating itself. “I love you, Akira, more than anything I’ve ever touched.”





	the allure of memory

**Author's Note:**

> this is for shuake confidant day 3. I chose to focus on the death prompt
> 
> I wrote this on an airplane and cried the whole time  
> 

Akechi Goro is dying, and he knows this. He thinks it is somewhat funny.

In fact, as he lies on the dirty floor of a ship that will soon cease to exist, laughter bubbles out of his throat like a pot boiling over. He laughs and laughs and laughs, finding his up and coming death to be the funniest thing that’s ever happened. The hysterical sounds turn to sobs and wails as the ship tilts sideways into the water. It pays no mind to the life in its engine room, and for Goro, he feels that this is an appropriate metaphor for his existence.

Akechi Goro wishes he could be an infant again. As he waits for his heart to stop, he wonders what went wrong when he was born. The blankets he was swaddled in at the hospital were no different from the blankets swaddling other babies, the monitors made the same noises, the nurses said the same things. He wonders why he is dying young. He wonders why he is dying in this room, on this day.

The bullet nestled comfortably near his spine mocks him every time he moves and shudders and trips over his breath. Fitting that the person to steal his life away in the end was essentially himself, and he can’t say he is surprised. If he saw himself like this at five years old, he wonders what he would do.

He closes his eyes, wanting to take a rest, and moves through the universe.

He is seven years old now, playing in a puddle outside. Today is the last day he will spend with this foster family, but he doesn’t know that yet. They hadn’t kept him for long despite him staying on his very best behavior. The water splashes against his pants as he stomps his bare feet, watching how it ripples like a bullseye. Tomorrow the adults that will come to retrieve him will ask, _were you happy there?_ and, _are you all right now?_ and Goro will say yes, yes, yes, yes and nod his head like he knows to do.

As he plays in the street, he notices a line of ants marching along the curb. They are soldiers and Goro is their aircraft. He lets them crawl onto his fingers and tickle the nerves there before he swipes them into the puddle. The soldiers drown and Goro bursts into tears, realizing what he’s done — he cries and cries as if he’s committed the most horrific murder and vows to never do something like that again.

That night, he has homemade ramen for dinner and swings his legs at the kitchen table as he eats.

Now he is rolling through time again. At twelve years old, he knows what he is interested in: sweet foods, cycling, reading. He thinks he likes cycling, anyway, but he hasn’t rode a bike since two families ago. The family he has now doesn’t make him breakfastlunchordinner, they don’t say good morning or good night, but Goro is polite anyway because every time he is abandoned his insides are eaten away more and more. If a doctor stuck him inside a CAT scan machine, they might see a gaping hole in his chest cavity; they might see his pericardium peeling away if they cut him open.

At age twelve, he is already becoming a plastic figure. At age twelve, he is already pretending to be a different person.

Children at school tease him for playing with toddler’s toys, tease him for being _the bastard kid_ , tease him for trying to reclaim his lost childhood. He takes all of it without a single complaint and instead lets the words fester inside him. _It’s love_ , he tells himself at twelve years old. _This is love._

Suddenly Goro is back in real time because he hears the sound of something banging against metal. The barrier that separates him from life and death has a dent in it, two dents, three, and then it morphs into one massive dent before it is blasted through. The ship is as diagonal as a win on a bingo board by now, and he stares at Akira and Yusuke struggling to walk up the slope, their backs and legs tense.

Goro searches for words, searches through the noxious air, but before he can say anything, Yusuke and Akira are yanking him up into their arms. The bullet inside of him burns greedily.

“Don’t say anything,” Akira says, and his hands are strong and firm as they hold Goro, “We’re getting you out.”

It’s not as though he can say anything at all. The pain shooting through his body chains down his words and grammar and comprehension of sentence structure. He closes his eyes again, exhausted.

The world warps once more and now Goro is fifteen, and he has just murdered someone for the first time — cognitively murdered. Though it doesn’t really make a difference, because the woman he shot is due to be covered in dirt and sealed in a coffin anyway.

He is alone in an alleyway, head and hands resting against the side of a building. Police sirens shout in the distance, and Goro tries to focus on those sounds so he can will himself to stop vomiting and shaking. In his mind, he is not outside in an alleyway, but is leaning against the wall of a castle instead, taking a break from running from guards. The metaphorical blood on his shoulders is not an innocent woman’s, no, it is the metaphorical blood of the guards in the castle. He is a vagabond.

At fifteen with one too many murders already on his shoulders, the castle dissolves away and Akechi Goro comes to terms with the fact that he is simply leaning against a wall in an alleyway at the end of the day. He tells himself that he has to accept reality; it is foolish to live in a trance of fantasies when there are more serious things to attend to.

And so he abandons trying to find a speck of what it is like to be a child and never looks for it again.

Something is shaking his real body, and when he flutters open his eyes, apparently it is Akira. They aren’t in the palace anymore, they are on the sidewalk. Well, to be exact, he is laying down on the sidewalk. There is a wet sensation underneath him and he lifts his hand up and smiles dreamily when he realizes it’s his own blood — he is on a raft on a sea of red.

“Goro,” Akira says, and the use of his given name sounds like a bell, “Stay awake. Just a few more minutes, that’s all you have to do.”

“I’m watching a movie,” Goro mumbles in return. His tongue is too heavy to say anything else and he hopes Akira will understand.

“I know it’s nice when you close your eyes, but it’s much nicer here.” Akira touches his face, slides his hands across his cheeks. “See? Focus on my hands.”

“Okay,” Goro lies, and shuts his heavy eyelids once more.

Now it is the summer of this year — August. It’s a hot evening and outside cicadas gossip to one another in trills. He is in Akira’s attic, laying in bed with him, legs tangled as if their lives depend on it. The bedsheet lays abandoned near their feet because Akira said _if we don’t get this thing off, I’m going to drown the room in sweat._

Akira plays with Goro’s hair because he knows how much he likes it. The brown haired boy reads something off of his phone — something about the production of white versus green mint ice cream. They had an argument about it, maybe, and he’s trying to prove his point.

While he reads, Akira kisses the skin lining his throat and mumbles things like, _I love your voice when you read,_ and _your hair is so soft_ , and _did you use a different cologne today?_ He is so stupidly smitten and Goro is too and it makes him nauseous to think about it.

Before Goro registers the movement, Akira is sitting on top of him and his hands are pushing up his shirt. He trades the phone in his hands for the sensation of Akira’s back; he pulls Akira down and kisses him like it’s the first time, the last time. It makes him feel alive.

The scene blends and now it is November and he is doing the same thing; the summer heat is gone and replaced by body heat.

 _I love you,_ Akira says against his lips, _I love you, I love you, I love you._ He says it like he’s begging for something, and perhaps he is. He says it like Goro is dying.

The Goro that is laying on the sidewalk opens his eyes and looks up at the stars. Akira is hovering above him — oh, actually, he may he holding Goro in his lap — and his hands are lightly hitting Goro’s face, and he is saying, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” like Goro is dying and it’s because he is.

“It’s not going to work, Akira,” he says in the most stern voice he can muster. The world is fuzzy and soft.

Akira scans his eyes desperately before he whispers this: “I know. I know. I’m sorry, Goro.”

“It’s okay,” Goro says, and he means it. “If I could die any way, it would be this way. I’m sorry if that’s a disturbing thing to say. I’m happy, Akira.”

“I didn’t want you — alone. I couldn’t leave you in there.” Through his words is the hidden message _I knew you were going to die when I first picked you up._

“It’s okay,” Goro says again, and he wonders if time is repeating itself. “I love you, Akira, more than anything I’ve ever touched.”

Akira looks like he wants to say something but can’t find the words. He holds Goro’s face and kisses him on the mouth like it’s the first time, the last time.

 _It’s love,_ Goro tells himself, and this time it is. _This is love._

 

\- x -

 

Akechi Goro is dead, and Kurusu Akira knows this. He doesn’t think it is funny at all.

His hands are covered in red, and it is not his gloves, it is human blood. He holds Goro’s lifeless, soulless body in his lap and cries and cries and cries like he is a baby. The world watches from a distance as fate takes its long pair of scissors and cuts another string without feeling a thing.

Akira runs his fingers through Goro’s hair because he knows how much he likes it.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> comments kudos sharing etc are appreciated! thank you for reading
> 
> edit: there’s a minor plot inconsistency (doesn’t affect anything) in this that I noticed so just pretend it isn’t there .. haha


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